This invention relates to data communication networks including a wireless link for transmitting data packets between an end user machine and a server, and more particularly to arrangements of this type for accessing Internet content such as server-based web pages from the end user machine.
An end user machine in such an arrangement utilizes a web browser to request, retrieve and locally display web pages, each of which consists of many objects of small size. The TCP protocol is typically used to transport this data over the wireless link between the end user machine (or client) and the Internet server to which the web page request is directed. The wireless link includes a subscriber unit which is coupled to the end user machine, and a base station which is coupled to the server and is in radio communication with the subscriber unit.
The use of the TCP protocol in such connections through a wireless environment has several disadvantages. Such environment is especially subject to packet losses that are most often caused by signal loss and temporary disconnects, resulting in missing or delayed acknowledgment signals between the end user machine and the server. TCP frequently interprets such wireless packet loss as network congestion, even when no network congestion is present. This is true whether packets are destined for the end user machine or the server. This increases the likelihood that the applicable TCP protocols at either end of the network connection will invoke congestion avoidance/slow start modes at the server. In addition, each of the small objects on a retrieved web page must be transported over one or more separate TCP connections, which severely burdens the capacity allocation requirements on the wireless link. Consequently, the TCP connections never reach their optimum transmission speeds, and the wireless network resources are very inefficiently used.
These problems are especially acute in the case where an end user machine is requesting access to web pages that are housed on an Internet server. A separate connection from the client to the server has to be established through the wireless link not only when the client sends a web page request but also when the client wants to retrieve the plurality of objects that typically are contained within the web page. Each of the requests for a web page and a separate object must be responded to over the connection by the web server, and since typically small amounts of data are involved each time in going across the wireless interface, an especially poor allocation of system resources is present.